Shakib Al Hasan became the fourth bowler after Muttiah Muralitharan, Dale Steyn and Rangana Herath to take five-wicket hauls against all Test playing nations
Image courtesy of: Zimbio
Shakib Al Hasan left Australia in a spin with his five-wicket haul before Bangladesh proceeded to extend their lead to 88 runs at the end of the second day of the first Test in Mirpur.
While Shakib continuously bamboozled the Baggy Greens’ batsmen, opener Matt Renshaw and all-rounder Ashton Agar deserve a lot of credit for their gutsy knocks of 45 and 41 not out respectively. Without their efforts, Australia would have found themselves in all sorts of trouble.
Starting off the day on 18/3, Australia only added 15 runs to their overnight score before captain Steve Smith was clean bowled by Mehidy Hasan Miraz for eight runs.
Matt Renshaw and Peter Handscomb made up for the loss of Smith with a 69-run partnership before Handscomb was given out lbw off the bowling of Taijul Islam for 33.
Renshaw, who had opened the batting and survived to this point, ended up making a hard-fought 45 before he was caught by Soumya Sarkar at first slip off the bowling of Shakib Al Hasan.
Matt Renshaw was Australia’s top scorer
Image courtesy of: Zimbio
Wicketkeeper Matthew Wade only mustered five runs before he was trapped lbw off the bowling of Mehidy.
Wade opted not to go for a review despite talking to Maxwell, but had he risked it, it would have paid off as replays showed that the ball would have been missing the stumps.
Maxwell went on to make 23 before he was stumped by Mushfiqur Rahim off the bowling of Shakib.
With Bangladesh aiming to finish off the tail quickly, Pat Cummins and Ashton Agar stopped that from happening as they kept the hosts as bay for a while with a 49-run partnership.
In the end, Shakib provided the breakthrough for Bangladesh when he clean bowled Pat Cummins for 25.
Australia were eventually bowled out for 217, which gave Bangladesh a 43-run lead, when Josh Hazlewood was removed by Shakib for five runs.
Agar, meanwhile, remained stranded on 41 not out, which came off 97 balls and included two boundaries and a six.
Shakib was the pick of the bowlers with five wickets, while Mehidy snapped up three and Taijul chipped in with one.
With a 43-run lead in hand, Bangladesh made a solid start to their second innings, but in the penultimate over of the day, Agar struck for Australia as he got rid of Sarkar for 15.
Tamim Iqbal and Taijul, who was sent in as the nightwatchman, managed to see off the last 11 balls of the day and amassed an unbeaten two-run partnership into the process.
Iqbal finished on 30 off 70 balls, which included two boundaries, while Taijul has yet to get off the mark.
Agar was the only bowler to take a wicket.
Bangladesh ended day two on 45/1 and will continue batting on Tuesday at 10:00 local time or 04:00 GMT.